A 16-year-old might be quite capable of making an informed decision about whether to end a pregnancy -- a decision likely to be made after due consideration and consultation with an adult -- but this same adolescent may not possess the maturity to be held to adult levels of responsibility if she commits a violent crime, according to new research into adolescent psychological development. [...more]
This 20-page report says that adult African Americans were arrested on drug charges at rates that were 2.8 to 5.5 times as high as those of white adults in every year from 1980 through 2007, the last year for which complete data were available. About one in three of the more than 25.4 million adult drug arrestees during that period was African American. [...more]
New figures showing that the incarcerated population in the United States remains the largest in the world highlight the need to adopt alternative criminal justice policies, Human Rights Watch said today. [...more]
New figures showing that US incarceration rates are climbing even higher, with racial minorities greatly overrepresented in prisons and jails, highlight the need to adopt alternative criminal justice policies, Human Rights Watch said today. [...more]
Strategies that can help reduce the number of children who die before their fifth birthday were highlighted today, at the launch of UNICEF’s flagship report - The State of the World’s Children 2008: Child Survival – in Geneva. [...more]
Youth Sentenced to Life without Parole in California. Approximately 227 youth have been sentenced to die in California’s prisons.1 They have not been sentenced to death: the death penalty was found unconstitutional for juveniles by the United States Supreme Court in 2005. Instead, these young people have been sentenced to prison for the rest of [...] [...more]
New US government figures showing that the United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other country highlight the need to consider alternative criminal justice policies, Human Rights Watch said today. [...more]
